Do you suffer from upper back, neck or shoulder pain? If you do, are you dealing with it as effectively as possible? Whether your upper back or shoulder pain is your present or future problem, you may want to better understand what you are dealing with and how to avoid or relieve it.
Disclaimer
The opinions stated here are based on over 50 years of personal research and what has and has not worked for my clients, my acquaintances and me. This is an offering to get you thinking outside of the “pill box” and possibly resolve the root of your pain instead of only covering it up with medications—medications are helpful, but they rarely resolve your upper back, neck or shoulder pain. There are no guarantees that any of this will work for you and some may give you adverse affects, which tells you what NOT to do—anyway, it’s worth a try if your present pain is intolerable.
Statistics
Forty-two percent to of the US population sporadically suffers and 51% chronically suffer from sporadic upper back, neck and shoulder pain. Thus, upper back, neck and shoulder pain has also become an epidemic in the US, especially among dental staff and clerical workers.
Causes of Upper Back, Neck and Shoulder Pain”
► An unhealthy sitting or standing position while working (twisted and/or bent over, slouching, etc.)
► Sitting or standing in the same position for hours
► Slouching when standing, sitting or walking instead of keeping your spine straight
► Trigger points that cause upper back and shoulder pain and arm weakness
► Muscle injury or weakness due to overexertion
Ways to AVOID Upper Back, Neck and Shoulder Pain:
► When sitting, don’t hunch over, sit as upright as possible using a “Posture Corrector" if needed (see attached PDF).
► Don’t watch TV/phone or read or do anything in one position for more than an hour, get up and move around and do something “physical”.
► Don’t sleep on just one side, constricting blood flow to your arm/shoulder on that side; use a pillow that keeps your head and spine in line and off of your arm/shoulder.
► See a chiropractor at least once a year to make sure that your spine is in good shape.
► Get a deep tissue full upper body massage at least once a year.
► Learn about and use “Trigger Point Therapy”, it is very helpful (see attached PDF).
► If an injury, take it easy and learn to live with the pain until the injury has healed—heat/cold, pain killers and Voltaren ointment helps.
Dealing with Upper Back, Neck and Shoulder Pain
For Temporary Localized Relief:
► Lie with your painful area on a 4”x6”x½” ceramic magnet (north side towards pain) for 10-20 minutes.
► Use a microwave heating pad (never an electric heating pad) on the painful muscles or cold on a sour joint. A general rule of thumb is to use cold for bone pain and heat (or a combination of heat and cold) for muscle pain.
► Gently use a “Massage Gun” on a low (½) setting on the painful area for at least 2 minutes when nothing else works.
► Rub Voltaren ointment into the painful area.
For Longer Lasting Pain Relief:
If your pain is caused by poor posture use a “Posture Corrector” to keep your back straight. My poor posture was eventually corrected using the product shown in the attached PDF. Unfortunately bad habits cause the pain to reoccur requiring the use of the posture corrector for about a week while working/watching TV to stop the pain.
A bonus; by correcting your posture you put less strain on your lower back, reducing the reoccurrence of lower back and hip pain, especially if you have lumbar stenosis.
For pain caused by weakened/cramped neck and shoulder muscles there is an effective way to relieve that pain if it isn’t from an injury. This stretching exercise can be painful, so first use heat or rub Voltaren on the painful areas and wait a few minutes. Next, lay flat on your stomach, legs straight and slightly apart with the painful shoulder arm straight and above your head with your other arm lying comfortably on the bed. Lay your head very flat on the bed facing away from the painful shoulder and relax. You should feel pain in your neck and shoulder muscles while stretching those weak/cramped muscles for 5 to 10 minutes (or when the pain disappears). When done, after a few minutes your neck and shoulder pain should be noticeably less, if not gone.
Note: if you don’t have a clock/stopwatch to time these stretching exercises use breathing as your timer. About 7 to 10 slow deep breaths takes about a minute: time yourself to see how many slow deep breaths it takes for your one minute. The slow deep breaths also helps your muscles relaxed—remember you are doing these exercises to relieve your pain, not to see how quickly you can get through them—pain doesn’t care about your schedule.
Trigger points in the upper back and shoulders cause neck and shoulder pain and weakness in the arms—it is sometimes misdiagnosed as angina. Massage your scapular (shoulder blade) trigger points (it is best to do it with a massage gun) to help relieve the pain. An important trigger point is in the armpit/rib area of your painful shoulder/weak arm. It is easy to find because it causes excruciating pain once you find and press on it. To lower that trigger point massage pain, rub some Voltaren on it, wait a few minutes and then gently massage it for a few minutes, incrementally adding as much pressure as you can stand until the trigger point pain is mostly gone—it will take a few minutes, a few times a day for a few days. It is less painful to do this with a “Massage Gun” on ½ setting with increasing pressure until the trigger point pain is gone. Once the trigger point is “smashed” the shoulder pain and arm weakness should subside after a few days of massage. Unfortunately, due to bad habits, that pain will eventually come back and you will need to massage that armpit trigger point again, but each time you do the trigger point pain lessens. Eventually (months) that trigger point will disappear along with your shoulder pain and arm weakness—this is not a quick cure, but it’s the only thing that works.
If the back of your neck is stiff there MAY be a painless way to resolve it other than a “Posture Corrector” or doing the stretching exercises above. Lay flat on your stomach with the edge of the mattress across your shoulders and your head freely hanging over the side. Relax—if not relaxed this will not work—and take 10 slow deep breaths to allow your neck vertebra to stretch out. If this works for you, great: if not, try something else like a heating pad.
Dealing with “Mysterious Chest Pain”
Chest pain occurs in about 75% of the population, but only 3% of the population has heart attacks—thus, chest pain is not a great predictor of heart attacks. About 5% of the population experience trigger point pain in the sternalis muscles (muscles around the sternum) and a higher percentage of the population from trigger points in other chest muscles near the sternum. Sternalis muscle trigger point pain actually feels like a heart attack because it is located directly over the heart. I get that kind of pain once or twice a year and resolve it with trigger point massage. You don’t have to be an expert in “Trigger Point Therapy" to relieve that pain (along with your very real fears of a heart attack). More than a decade ago I started using Trigger Point Therapy to lesson the occurrence and severity of my gout attacks. Along the way I noticed that massaging chest muscle trigger points relieved the chest pain that felt like a heart attack.
The reason why I am discussing this mysterious pain is because it can have very nasty repercussions. My sister felt that pain and went to the hospital because she thought she was having a heart attack. Unfortunately, the physicians could not find the reason for her pain—most physicians don’t have a clue about Trigger Point Pain. While in the hospital she contracted sepsis, was extremely ill in the hospital for days and very weak for many days after she left the hospital. She still had the chest pain and called me about it. I told her to find and massage the painful trigger points on the both sides of her sternum simultaneously. She did for a minute, it was quite painful, but the chest pain disappeared immediately—enough said.
I hope that this pearl can help you with your upper body, neck and shoulder pain—something that can seem impossible to resolve—but it can be resolved or at least reduced. The third and final part of this pain series deals with TMJ pain and will arrive next month.
